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Saturday, December 22, 2012

'We Are To Be Shot in the Morning'

3 teens among 7 IRA 'irregulars' executed 90 years ago in Kildare

'We are to be shot in the morning, 19th
December at 8.15…We are dying happy anyway, so good-bye old Kildare.' -- Paddy Bagnall, from Hare Park Prison,
Curragh Camp, December 18, 1922

By Robert Doyle

Paddy Nolan's final letter home to his parents. Click on theimage to see a larger view.

With much of the attention regarding the
struggle for Irish independence being on the upcoming centenary of the 1916
Rising, events in County Kildare 90 years ago this December bring into sharp
focus the tragedy of the subsequent Civil War.

Men and women who had fought side by
side against British rule, turned their vitriol and their weapons on each other
in a bitter conflict that began with the occupation of the Four Courts in the
summer of 1922 by forces opposed the signing and ratification of an Anglo-Irish
Treaty.

The outbreak
of the Civil War forced pro and anti-treaty supporters to choose sides.
Supporters of the treaty came to be known as 'pro-Treaty' or Free State Army,
legally the National Army. The objectors called themselves "Republicans," but were
more commonly known by the Free State government as “Irregulars.”

Although most
of the fighting took place in Dublin and around Munster, County Kildare was no
different in terms of the bitter divides.The occupation of the Curragh Camp by the Free
State Army after British withdrawal made operations very difficult for the small
column of Irregulars who operated in the vicinity of Kildare town.

Eamonn O’Modhrain from Ballysax, who had commanded the 6th
Battalion of the IRA’s Carlow Brigade (South Kildare/West Wicklow) during the
War of Independence, objected strongly to the signing of the Treaty and was
immediately arrested and imprisoned for much of the year-long conflict.
However, many of his former command took up arms against the Free State and
operated a guerrilla- style war around Kildare Town, concentrating their efforts
on disrupting the vital railway network in the area.

Moore's Bridge, where the 7 'irregulars' were captured.

In late 1922, The Leinster
Leader reported that a column of Irregulars were operating in the vicinity of
Kildare, derailing or stealing train engines, which would subsequently be used
as an obstruction, blocking the line. It was also reported that on
November 25th, this column took part in an ambush of Free State
troops, audaciously close to the Curragh Camp.

On December 13th, 10 men, allegedly the same column, were
surprised at a farmhouse beside Moore’s Bridge (close to the Curragh
Racecourse) by Free State troops. Having been found in possession of rifles, a
quantity of ammunition and other supplies, the men were arrested and brought
the short distance to the Curragh Camp. During the arrest, one of the captured,
Thomas Behan, was killed although the cause of his death remains disputed to
this day.

In the following days, seven of the men were tried before a military
court and found guilty of being in possession of arms without authority. Unfortunately for the convicted, the Free
State government had, only weeks earlier, decreed that such an offence was
punishable by death. The executions were duly carried out by firing squad on the morning of
December 19th at the Military Detention Barracks. Although the Free State sanctioned 77 official
executions of anti-Treaty prisoners during the war, this combined
execution of seven men was the largest carried out -- a tragic statistic in
County Kildare’s history.

The day before their deaths, the seven men were allowed to write
letters to their family and loved ones. Each letter is a tragic but very
poignant memorial to the men, composed as they each came to terms with their fate. Typed
copies of some of the letters were sent to their ex-commander, Eamonn
O’Modhrain.

Nineteen-year-old Paddy Bagnall wrote to his uncle that he and his
comrades were “all to go West together … but it is all for the best, and I hope
it sets old Ireland free.” Bagnall finishes a remarkably mature letter for one
so young by stating that he was dying happy and bids “good-bye old Kildare.”

Paddy Nolan, 34. penned a heartbreaking final letter to
his mother and father. He hoped that they would bear his death with “the
Courage of an Irish Father & Mother.” He tried to ease his mother’s worry
by writing that the chaplain in the Curragh, Father Donnelly, had told him that
he would go straight to heaven.

Kildare memorial to the 7 who

were executed.

However, the saddest words are often the simplest, and Nolan signed off
by telling his family that he “had a few pounds in his suit case” and they
could have them and anything else in the house belonging to him. A shorter
letter to his younger brothers and sisters asks that they remember him and his
comrades on Christmas morning, only a few weeks away. He also asks that they be
good children and always obey their parents.

The other letters written by the men on the eve of their deaths are
similar in composition and sentiment. Each is also a reminder of the conflict that scarred the fledgling Irish nation during
its progression from a British colony into a sovereign country.

The men were buried
in the grounds of the Detention Barracks, but their remains were later exhumed
and lay in state in the courthouse in Kildare Town before being reinterred in Kildare's Grey Abbey Cemetery, in 1924. A gravestone was subsequently erected
over their collective grave and a monument erected in the Market Square, in Kildare town.

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